Hey all,I just wanted to drop a note because HSD and HA are two things really close to my heart. I'm 25 now, but I spent most of my time ages 13-18 on HSD. I owned the site for a few years (17-20, I think) and modded throughout. Most of my friends from high school are from HSD - I consider them the closest thing to a "graduating class" of high school peers. Ryan Stollar and I sort of knew each other from the HSD circles (sharing tons of mutual friends) and it was my interaction with my HSD friends that inspired Homeschoolers Anonymous. My thoughts about my own past experiences developed and were clarified by my conversations with my peers. These thoughts have been percolating in so many homeschoolers' minds, that many of us literally had our stories and arguments written and ready to go - lacking only a platform from which to broadcast our message. Homeschoolers Anonymous became that platform and those stories are of my friends and my new homeschooled friends.

From my perspective now, I can see that religious fundamentalism permeated homeschooling culture. It masqueraded in many different forms - Little Bear Wheeler, David Barton, Michael Farris, HSLDA, and Doug Phillips - and some of the most radical voices are also the leadership of the Christian homeschooling movement. Christian homeschoolers make up about 50-80% of the 1.5 million homeschoolers nationally, so we're talking about a problem that has a significant scope (even for national American culture). This is not an issue of a "sub-culture within a sub-culture," rather a fringe sub-culture (Christian fundamentalism and patriarchy) that co-opted a mainstream trend (homeschooling). The co-option of the home education movement, which began in the 1970s, was a united front of secular humanists, Seventh Day Adventists, and Evangelicals. In the late-1980s, Farris, Greg Harris, and his ilk began a subtle take over of the movement (ideologically and financially). If you want more information on this, I highly recommend the two best academic works on homeschooling: Mitchel Steven's Kingdom of Children and Milton Gaither's Homeschool: An American History. The most offensive event we have uncovered is a 2009 Leadership Summit, which lays out a literal manifesto for Christian homeschooling - a meeting led and organized by men who speak at 3-5 state-wide homeschooling conventions (and two of the largest ones they keynote: CHEA in CA and FPEA in FL),

The most difficult thing about all this is that people react in a few different ways: they deny this is a problem, they say it's only a fringe problem, or they say that I'm just personally bitter. As all of you probably know, it's not fun or easy to share the message we are sharing. My family doesn't really speak to me anymore, and my parents have yet to acknowledge the site's existence. To many of my former friends, I am now the "enemy" because I had the audacity to link homeschooling with child abuse.

It's not absurd to link homeschooling to child abuse and I'll explain why. First, we have to know what I mean by "homeschooling." Homeschooling is a legal status, a pedagogy, and a worldview. It is a legal status and, as a home educator, parents have a relationship with the state. It is a pedagogy (and there are many different versions) because it's a very different way to teach a child. I fully support the pedagogy of homeschooling. Homeschooling is a worldview to almost everyone who is involved in it. They take criticism of homeschooling, its dominant narratives, and the culture as a personal attack. To Doug Phillips, Keven Swanson, Michael Farris, Voddie Bauchum and Chris Klicka (and many others), homeschoolers are an object in the culture war. The QuiverFull ideology literally says that children are arrows "in the quiver of a mighty man" and that mighty man is supposed to fight for a Christian America (based on a lie about our history). The patriarchy is heavy in the homeschooling culture as well. It's organized and carried out by women, but the men are the leaders, God's ordained providers.

My conversations in the last few months have identified some troubling themes from our collective experience in the NCFCA. (caveat: I am five years removed from the league, but I’m sure some of these attitudes are still prevalent in some regions.) It seems that, as a whole, men were given a sense of entitlement and women were held to an impossible standard of “Godly modesty” and submission. The arbiter of all competitive rounds in the NCFCA is the judge (or judges), who are trained and informed by the NCFCA prior to their judging. A mix of community volunteers, competitors’ parents, and alumni judge the events. Often, sexist ideas about gender influenced a judge’s decision and they commented on ballots about girls’ appearance of modesty. These sort of critiques of personal hygiene and “modesty” were encouraged usually before every tournament, if not every competition day, by tournament representatives.

Ultimately, the standards of modesty promoted a rape culture (which is not to say that they promoted rape), where women would be “at fault” for dressing immodestly if they turned a man on. The purity culture’s inversion of guilt can be detrimental to some young women. Fundamentally, a binary is constructed where the “good girls” wear modest clothes, don’t lead boys on, and get happily married at a young age, whereas girls who dress in pant suits or develop friendships with male competitors are “slutty” and will not be “desirable for marriage.” In a culture that extols “godly motherhood” as the life purpose of females, not being desirable for marriage is an affront to a person’s intrinsic worth. Recently, Elizabeth Smart discussed how the purity culture influenced her negatively to feel worthless like “an old piece of gum” during her captivity.

All that is to say, I'm here to answers any questions you might have about Homeschoolers Anonymous and to provide you with any information you may seek.

Not directly related to Homeschoolers Anonymous, but I would be interested to know if you thought that being involved in debate and NCFCA contributed to your desire to challenge the prevalent ideology of homeschooling and such. I've found it to be very helpful in helping me to challenge the beliefs of those around me and try to evaluate my own beliefs.

I was introduced to the world of speech and debate by Communicators for Christ in 2003 and from that moment, I was obsessed with speech and debate. For four years, I competed in tournaments across the country, even interning and touring with CFC. For me, as a child raised in a fundamentalist homeschooling cult, the Advanced Training Institute (ATI), speech and debate was a welcome diversion. It emphasized critical thinking, research, and discussion about issues. All of these concepts were relatively foreign to me, despite my inclination to argue at an early age. Debate gave me the tools to deconstruct my fundamentalist worldview.

While my experience was liberating and empowering, I was surprised to hear many of my female peers from NCFCA/CFC complaining about the sexism they experienced first-hand in these environments. The patriarchal attitudes also lead to discrimination against any males that did not conform to the dominant ideal of “Godly masculinity.” The male youths were given leaderships roles in worship (before the tournaments), while women sang or played an instrument (usually piano). I can only imagine the torment of being homosexual in such an environment. I know many of my former NCFCA friends now openly identify as homosexual and they have dealt with other NCFCA friends saying they should be stoned to death.

So I think NCFCA helped me gain the tools to "wage this war," but the desire to "wage a war" I think comes from the counter-cultural message of homeschooling. Homeschooling was promoted by many as a worldview, a lifestyle choice, that had distinctly political and religious significance (for society and the individual). In a way, it gave me a mindset like the communists of Eastern Europe that "the personal is political." Debate trained me to be a weapon for use in the Christian Right's culture war against an encroaching enemy of "secular humanism." Homeschooling began as a form of counter-cultural behavior/lifestyle that challenged the dominant narrative of society (that public education is good). Seeing fundamentalist Christian successfully lobby the government, especially HSLDA's efforts to stonewall child abuse investigations, has given me a passion about informing people of the anti-democratic nature of much of the dominant homeschooling culture. I know that's hard to even wrap your head around and, without debate, I would have never been able to escape my own emotional and intellectual prison, let alone help others deconstruct theirs.

Now that I've been exposed to what secular humanism is, I realized all of the Enlightenment theory, the Founding Fathers, and most form of liberal thought in the eighteenth century came from that. If anything, America was founded to be a secular humanist nation, I argued in some graduate papers that some of the Founders (Paine and Jefferson especially) exhibited some proto-socialist philosophies. Especially in regards to the Jeffersonian ideal of agrarian democracy, which Jefferson believed was impossible without a strong public education system.

I hope that helps explain some of the nuances as far as how I see the influence of my activism.

To throw in an extra data point, I competed in Region V for three years and Region IV for three years. (As a sort of casual-moderate compared to most of my friends, I was quite aware of the political spectrum of the community, but never really saw it through activist's lenses; so this may be neither representative nor useful, but more data can't hurt.) If there were complaints about sexism, they were not prominent enough that I particularly noticed or remembered them. There were certainly a number of families with highly patriarchal home life, but it wasn't something I actively noticed at the league level. Other aspects of political and religious conservatism were a different matter.

According to alumni I know, competition culture in Region V has gotten a lot more secular in the last five years or so, although I haven't confirmed this personally.

I've heard reports of V being bad, but my experiences is primarily in IV, VII, and other southern states. I had no exposure to the NE, a little bit in the Midwest (back in 04), and I knew a lot of people on the West Coast. I think this is probably a more localized problem now than it was. It seems, as a whole, the homeschooling movement is much more secular and "normal" than the fundamentalism that was mainstream five years ago. I think now the fundie groups have just learned to speak the language of the mainstream, still injecting their ideas. Take the Leadership Summit and the list of all the conferences just those guys spoke at in the last few years... I think it's definitely still an issue.

I just want to make clear your objective in Homeschoolers Anonymous. Do you think that homeschooling has potential to be a great method of education, if these pitfalls are avoided, or do you think that homeschooling is fundamentally flawed.

In a different sense, (hypothetically) would you homeschool your children (if your wife was willing)?

_________________

"The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits"

I just want to make clear your objective in Homeschoolers Anonymous. Do you think that homeschooling has potential to be a great method of education, if these pitfalls are avoided, or do you think that homeschooling is fundamentally flawed.

Homeschoolers Anonymous is a cooperative project by former homeschoolers. We are an inclusive community interested in sharing our experiences growing up in the conservative, Christian homeschooling subculture. From the Quiverfull movement to the betrothal/courtship mentality to Generation Joshua and the dominionist attitudes of HSLDA, we are survivors. And we are standing together to make our voices heard. We want the world to hear our stories and we want to give hope to those who are still immersed in that world. There is a way to break free and be yourself.

We do not advocate any one particular path — some of us are religious, some are not; some of us are politically liberal, others are conservative; some of us might homeschool our children in the future, others want nothing to do with homeschooling anymore. We are not interested in championing any particular doctrine.

We are not standing against homeschooling as an educational method. But we are standing up for those who have been hurt by certain oppressive groups and ways of thinking within homeschooling. Above all, we want to provide healing to other survivors, hope for those still suffering, and knowledge to those unaware of the inner workings of homeschooling.

Mission

The mission of Homeschoolers Anonymous is:1. To bring awareness to the suffering many children experience through aspects of certain homeschooling subcultures2. To educate the public about the inner workings and politics of some homeschooling communities3. To provide a voice against some of the extreme positions from within certain homeschool ideologies4. To inspire others to speak up about abuse and control5. To give hope to those who currently suffer from abuse and control6. To bring healing to those who have escaped an abusive or controlling home environment and provide new survivors with resources for developing independence7. To create a community of shared experiences

Quote:

In a different sense, (hypothetically) would you homeschool your children (if your wife was willing)?

No. And if anyone would homeschool my children, it would be me. My wife wasn't homeschooled, nor is she very domestic. I am very much looking forward to my children interacting with a diverse group of people, learning social skills, and even learning how to deal with bullying at an early age. I would only really consider homeschooling if my child had a learning disability that wasn't being served by the local school or if they were seriously a prodigy at 16. In that case, I'd homeschool them for a year or two.

I've heard reports of V being bad, but my experiences is primarily in IV, VII, and other southern states. I had no exposure to the NE, a little bit in the Midwest (back in 04), and I knew a lot of people on the West Coast. I think this is probably a more localized problem now than it was. It seems, as a whole, the homeschooling movement is much more secular and "normal" than the fundamentalism that was mainstream five years ago. I think now the fundie groups have just learned to speak the language of the mainstream, still injecting their ideas. Take the Leadership Summit and the list of all the conferences just those guys spoke at in the last few years... I think it's definitely still an issue.

I'm only one year removed from competition in NE, and I never heard any complaints about sexism, although I seem to remember "modesty" somehow cropping up on judge ballot stories. You can look at that two ways, I guess. Then again, I wasn't exactly very well tuned in to that sort of thing back then.

Is Region V more "secular"? Well, I dunno. In some ways, yes. I don't think the philosophy or general worldview has really changed much though?

Another question: are you concerned that your attacks on the worldview or philosophy of homeschoolers will detract from the pedagogy of homeschooling?

Did you have any doubts/fears about starting HSA? If so, what were/are they?

I wouldn't call them doubts or fears, more like just living with the consequences. It's emotionally exhausting sometimes and debating with parents isn't fun. I didn't think there would be a response there is and that has compelled me to press on. I'm not "afraid" my parents will view me as The Enemy for years, but it's definitely something I live with a don't enjoy as a result of this project.

thephfactor wrote:

Another question: are you concerned that your attacks on the worldview or philosophy of homeschoolers will detract from the pedagogy of homeschooling?

The harm to homeschooling is being done by parents who abuse and the leaders who advocate abusive teachings. Take a look at the Catholic Church, you don't cover up abuse and/or dismiss it, or it will come back to bite you. I will not silence myself to save the face of homeschooling. That attitudes makes children objects in this larger culture war. I tell the truth and try to raise awareness. The 2009 Leadership Summit is all you should need to see the "Secret Agenda" behind the scenes.

Homeschooling receives really positive treatment by the media, for the most part, and I'm not delusional enough to think that this activism will end up with a Federal ban on homeschooling. There is no state where regulations are too onerous to homeschool, despite FL, VA, NY, and some other having fairly strict regulations (compared to Texas where you don't even have to file papers with the state). If anything, our stories strengthen homeschooling. Many parents have said they find out stories really helpful because they often struggled to balance their authority with being reasonable. Homeschooling is hard and a big responsibility, not something to take lightly.

thephfactor wrote:

I'm only one year removed from competition in NE, and I never heard any complaints about sexism, although I seem to remember "modesty" somehow cropping up on judge ballot stories. You can look at that two ways, I guess. Then again, I wasn't exactly very well tuned in to that sort of thing back then.

I guess if there's an abuse in a system, obviously any harm caused to that system would be the fault of those who caused the problem rather than those who attempt to bring it to light, good point.

Sk8erboy wrote:

thephfactor wrote:

I'm only one year removed from competition in NE, and I never heard any complaints about sexism, although I seem to remember "modesty" somehow cropping up on judge ballot stories. You can look at that two ways, I guess. Then again, I wasn't exactly very well tuned in to that sort of thing back then.

Oh, interesting. I would say sexism is more prevalent towards women especially in very conservative circles, so I wouldn't have any first hand experience. And I was only in competition for one year and kept to a pretty small circle of people, many of whom probably don't see certain things as sexism. But fwiw I was never approached and I never heard of anybody being approached about dress code or anything. I would be interested to hear from other people in V who have run into such things and what they think of the overall atmosphere of the Region.

Oh yes, you'd be hard pressed to find a male who was the victim of this sort of sexism. After all, the sexism is based in patriarchal ideas about women, their modesty, and whose job it is to "protect" that modesty.

You've (rightfully) expressed concerns about the 'modesty culture.' How would you approach the issue of modesty with your sons and daughters? Would you have any expectations for clothing choice at all (not limited to clothing in relation to sexuality)?

_________________This account doesn't express the opinions of my employers and might not even express my own.

You've (rightfully) expressed concerns about the 'modesty culture.' How would you approach the issue of modesty with your sons and daughters? Would you have any expectations for clothing choice at all (not limited to clothing in relation to sexuality)?

I don't really think about questions like this. Who knows what the culture will be like in 12-15 years when this question will actually matter to me. What I won't do is shame my daughters for expressing their natural sexuality. It may be really weird for fathers to see their "little girls" growing up, but it's what they do and that wife of mine was one once, too. I think it's fathers not being able to deal with their daughter's sexuality that results in this intense shaming and invasion of the female mind. And if there was an issue, I'd probably let my wife handle it. I don't give a flying hoot if my kids remain sexually pure, I sure didn't. I will, however, give them strict lectures about using birth control and condoms.

Modesty is totally culturally defined, there is no bright line moral boundary that transcends societies and cultures, thus I do not see how you can make it into some absolute moral issue. Topless women in Africa are not committing sins, because those parts of them have not been sexualized. There's also something to be said for intrusive thoughts, which only become more pronounced when you try to repress them.

This is a quote that explains it well: "Lust is the background music that occasionally gets turned up. Learning to let it come and go without being ashamed—and without making it anyone else's problem—is part of growing up.” (warning: link to Slate article about graphic sexual thoughts, nothing pornographic)

Essentially, the more I shame my brain into not thinking certain thoughts, the more I will think them. Sexuality is a basic human desire/need (to reproduce) so why should I mess the the circuitry in my kids minds? Rather, I should just help them learn to deal with these urges and desires in positive ways. Why do you think so many aggressive homophobes turn out to be homosexuals?

Essentially, the more I shame my brain into not thinking certain thoughts, the more I will think them.

...I am not at all convinced that this is true. Lines of thought linked to endorphins (as lust is) can be strongly addictive, and accepting them can create a powerful feedback cycle. My own experiences, and those of others I've spoken with, seem to confirm this.

I won't get into a huge discussion about the addiction of lust, but this is pretty basic psychology of repression. But it's specifically about "intrusive thoughts," which are literally terrible thoughts that our own brain creates (a sort of "think of ever scenario" mechanism). If you think lustful thoughts are put into your mind by Satan and you convince your child that such thoughts are evil and unnatural, then you have some serious trauma that's going to happen. My solution isn't that every time you see a pretty woman you satisfy your desires, it's that you learn how to discipline yourself and your mind. That's a far different solution than "pray Satan's strongholds out of your mind."

I will say that lots of bodily process produce endorphins, including running, walking, meditating, smiling, eating chili peppers, fatty fried foods, and many other things. And the endorphins produced by thinking a thought are miniscule compared to the release when you eat a chili pepper or exercise.

I'm familiar with intrusive thoughts and repression, but that's not really what I'm referring to. There's a difference between handling intrusive thoughts in a rational way and intentionally indulging in lustful thinking for the purpose of self-gratification. This does involve a significant endorphin release, and can be tremendously addictive.

If you're only referring to intrusive thoughts, of course, then point understood. That just wasn't the impression your original post gave.

And, for our Christian viewers, "intentionally indulging in lustful thinking for the purpose of self-gratification" is the one that should be considered a sin under the old "He who looks upon a woman..." rule, not "intrusive thoughts", am I right?

And, for our Christian viewers, "intentionally indulging in lustful thinking for the purpose of self-gratification" is the one that should be considered a sin under the old "He who looks upon a woman..." rule, not "intrusive thoughts", am I right?

I would say so. But if you're dwelling on an intrusive thought, then that's still a sin. You can't just say "oh, that was an intrusive thought, it doesn't count!", you have to actively resist the devil and flee temptation.

Ultimately the only way to fight the sins in our lives (and pretty much all guys struggle with this particular sin, and I'm sure some gals do too), is to rest in the power of Christ applied to us by the Holy Spirit. And that means prayer, and that means trusting in His power to renew our hearts and minds.

Carry on with the discussion.

_________________I desire to know nothing but Christ and him crucified.

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